Foreign Views of U.S. Darken Since Sept. 11

[NNN0LHI]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=68&ncid=716&e=16&u=/nyt/20030911/ts_nyt/foreignviewsofusdarkensincesept11

BERLIN, Sept. 10 In the two years since Sept. 11, 2001, the view of the United States as a victim of terrorism that deserved the world's sympathy and support has given way to a widespread vision of America as an imperial power that has defied world opinion through unjustified and unilateral use of military force.

"A lot of people had sympathy for Americans around the time of 9/11, but that's changed," said Cathy Hearn, 31, a flight attendant from South Africa, expressing a view commonly heard in many countries. "They act like the big guy riding roughshod over everyone else."

In interviews by Times correspondents from Africa to Europe to Southeast Asia, one point emerged clearly: The war in Iraq has had a major impact on public opinion, which has moved generally from post-9/11 sympathy to post-Iraq antipathy, or at least to disappointment over what is seen as the sole superpower's inclination to act pre-emptively, without either persuasive reasons or United Nations approval.

To some degree, the resentment is centered on the person of President Bush, who is seen by many of those interviewed, at best, as an ineffective spokesman for American interests and, at worst, as a gunslinging cowboy knocking over international treaties and bent on controlling the world's oil, if not the entire world.

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[SOS]

1. Here are the numbers fromthe NYT:

[pippin]

3. but the irony of it all . .

The irony of it all that the U.S. has gone from being the victim of terrorism to being seen as terrorists:

"By the summer of 2003, it could fairly be said that most of the world hated the United States, or at least feared the current U.S. government. A particularly disturbing poll commissioned by the BBC revealed that the vast majority of Jordanians and Indonesians consider the United States more dangerous than al-Qaida. A majority in India, Russia, South Korea, and Brazil see us as more dangerous than Iran.

[Maeve]

2. Slate's Fred Kaplan did a good article on this

Miscalculating Sept. 11’s aftermath
On 9/11, Bush was handed a historic opportunity. He blew it.